Decorticating fibers



May 29, 1928. 1,671,219

J. BALDINGER DECORTIGATING FIBERS Filed April '7, 1925 19 I M1 15 A 15 Patented May 29, 1928.

mw entree.

JOHANN BALDINGER; 015AEWIIBQIYIZ ESTL'DE,-EST" A'FMCK;

. DEGORTICATTNG FIBERS;-

Application filed April 7,

This invention has for its object a method for obtaining fibers from the leaves of the conveyingor clamping means which clamp the leafapproximately at the middle.

According inconvenience is avoided, and considerably improved, by gripping. or clamping the leaf not as hitherto at'the mid dle. portion, point of treatment. At the first point of treatment the leaves. are decorticated' with the exception of a. short portion. near the root; end, and at the v second point of treatment this undecorticated is treated. Byyclampingthe leafduring'the first operation as close as possible to the .root,.when this-end is decorticated. during,

the second operation, practically all the 40 be decorticatedby each.

of the. improved working method can be easily eifectedwith the aid.of a table havabutment is. preferably inclined at an acute angle toward the. tableinthe direction of. the feeding of the leaves whereby the leaves are moved along. the abutment perpendicularly to the conveying direction, the. root endsofthe leaves beingthus accurately ads justed whenthe leaves are: delivered from the table.

An embodiment of the invention is shown In the commonly applied At the decorticating of. the leaf it was impossible to the present invention this. themethod is but at: the root end, at each portion of the leaf fibers are recovered, even the short ones. 1 For thedecorticating. two knife drums of The accurate adjusting ofthe root endsv of the leaves required for thecarrying out= ingastationary or movable. abutment. V The 1925, Serial No; 21,449, and in Germany. A hids-.1924.

by way of example in the accompanying drawing, inwhicli Fig; 1' is a side elevation ofOne forIH-of machine in accordance with my? invention,

Fi 2 is a iplanxview of'the machineshown in Fig, 1' with the upper conveying, ropes iflo removed,

Fig, 3 is a vertical section ionthe l ine 3'-3 of. Fig; 2,

Figs. 4: and 5 show two different forms" of? stripping knives, the front ends ofi which 66 are constructed to serve as preliminary; crushers, and

Fig. 6 is a plan'view of'a conveying jtable showing a modified form' of abutment.

'lheconvey-ing table l'consists ofmovablle' 70 belts andihas' an abutment 2 for adjusting the root'ends of the leaves. This abutment" is shown inFigs. 1 and 2 as" an-endless belt mounted at a slight angle with respect'to the direction of motion of the conveying table 1 indicated by the arrow 23. The belt 1 2 is moved at the same speed as the convey} ing table 1. The abutment may also talie the form of" a stationary guide -b'oardsuol i as that shown at'2 in Fig. 6'. The root ends of leaves which! are not properly adjusted whenth'ey come in contact" with the abutment are shifted in a direction perpendiou lar to the direction of movement of the table andthereby accuratelyadjusted. The", leaves to be :decortic'ated are transferred from the conveying table 1 in the direction of the arrow 00- upon conveying" means (bands, chains, .or'the like) and clampewb'etween these conveying means. The convey,- ingmeansare situated with regard tothe conveyin' tab 1e 1,,so that the leaves are grippediiy theupper ropes 3'andby the lower" rope 4 as closely as possiblev to the root ends. The conveyingmean's 3,,4cla-mp, 5 the leaves on the conveying dislt- 5 which: conducts the leaves between the beating drum 6 and the breast piece 7 At this occasion the greatest portion of the leaf is dcorti cated by the-beating drum 6" which is-of large diameter. Only/the short portion of the leafTwhich is clamped near the root end: is not submitted to the decorticatingtreat' ment at this point: The leaves, the greatest portion ofwhich has been decorticatediare 5 then conveyed by the ropes SandAito-the point 8 at which the lower rope turns back over the pulley 9 and the upper ropes over the pulley in liberating the leaves which are transferred to a second rope system similarto the first one and composed of the upper ropes l1 and a lower rope 12. This second rope system is displaced in lateral direction with regardto the first rope system so that the portion of the leaves which had been clamped by the first rope system is re leased and the leaves are gripped, just at the side of the portion 17 which has not yet been decorticated, at the point 14. The leaves are thenclamped on a conveying disk 13 leaves and conveyed by this disk between the small sized beating'drunrlti and the breast piece l6"so thatthe undecorticated portion of the is decorticated. The decorticated fibers are delivered from the machine at 18;

According to the present invention the agave leaf, which is mainly used for ob-.

taining fibers, is gripped at its extreme root 7 end,.viz, at the point where all the fibers begin which extend through the leaf, so that all the fibers are securely gripped, the flesh being stripped off in thedirection from the root end towards the thin point of the leaf. It is easiest to strip the flesh off in this direction, and the loss of fibers is thus reduced to the minimum. It is therefore of advantage that this direction be preserved as much as possible for stripping off the flesh.

For removing the flesh from the short root parts of the leaf, which is done by thesmall sized beating drum 6, the less favorable working towards the foot end is of less importance as in this case the edge fibers, which extend only very little beyond the middle of the leaf, have already been freed of flesh for a sufficient length so that they can be gripped securely.

The working methods according to. which the flesh is stripped off from the middle towards the two ends of the leaf or is stripped off at the middle part of the leaf and then toward the two ends have the inconvenience that the short edge fibers of the agave leaf areheld either not all or only very insufliciently whereby the waste is increased.

Theadjusting of the root ends of the leaves necessary for the exact execution of theimproved working method according to the invention presents further great advantages for the subsequent brushing andpolishing, as the fibers are delivered from the stripping process having their ends properly adjusted.

It is of advantage to use, instead of the simple beating knives shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the knivesshown in Figs. 4 and 5, as the fibers are more carefully treated. The knife,

shown in Fig.4, is inwardly offset from 19 to 20 so that the leaf to be freed of flesh is at first broken and made to conform to the curved breast piece.

comprising a breaking As shown in Fig. 5 the offset part is larger gap between the knife and thebreast piece which permits thick leaves'to enter into thespace between the knives and the breast piece'more easilyand therefore their transverse position is not altered so much as where the gap is small and the thick leaves have difficulty in entering.

I claim: I

1. The method of obtaining fibers from the leaves conveying them along one of said drums with the leaves lying transversely to the dlrectlon of conveying to decort'icate the of agaves andother fibrous plants by means of two deco-rticating drums situat ed one behind the other, which ponsists in grasping the leaves at the root ends andleaves with the exception of a short portion at their root ends and thenxaltering the grasping point of the leaves so that the pre viously grasped portion is liberated and conveying the leaves along the second of said drums to decorticate said short portion at" the root ends thereof.

2. The combination with a leaf decortieating machine of the type having two conveyors arranged one beyond the other in the conveying direction and slightly ofit'setwith relation to one another so that the second conveyor grasps the leaves at a different point closely adjacent the first gripping point, a decorticating means associated with the first conveyor for decorticating one end of each leaf from the grasping point out,

and a decorticating means associated with the second conveyor for .decorticating the remainder of the leaf, of means for-guiding the leaves to said first conveyor so that they .are grasped by said conveyor immediately adjacent their root ends.

3. In a machine of the type described a beating drum, knives on said heating drum ping portion, said. breaking portion being inwardly offset in relation to said stripping portion. i i 1 4. A machine in accordance with claim 3 in which said breaking portion is toothed.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature. J OHANN BALDINGER.

portion and a strip 

